V-Shaped Economic Recovery

A new software product has to be significantly better and less expensive to replace an installed seat.

As I mentioned in an earlier post this week, the economy appears to be accelerating at a pace that is much more like a traditional recovery. With 85% of the consumers employed and feeling like the worst is over, they are going to lead us out of this terrible mess.

One stock that I think is a proxy for the overall health of the AEC industry is Autodesk. Over the past couple of weeks this stock has taken off. From a low of 17 last year the stock has now nearly doubled, as have many others, but the pace seems to be accelerating.

While we are talking business, on a software product front I was reminded of a very important lesson that I had learned the hard way with a CAD start-up in the 90’s. It’s not enough to have an equally good product, when you are trying to displace an installed seat, you have to be significantly better and probably less expensive as well. It’s a very high threshold that has to be reached and why the first to market advantage is so valuable.

There may be still be an opportunity in the mobile space for that first to market vendor.

1 Response to V-Shaped Economic Recovery

what is the source for “85% of consumers are employed”? at what level are they employed? i respectfully disagree with you about a consumer led recovery (and so does most rational economists). u6 is still at over 20%. this recovery is completely fueled by deficit government spending (which yourself pointed out in an earlier post) and the printing press. good for gov sector aec sure, may spur short term relative euphoria but certainly not sustainable. the us certainly did not bear the brunt of the downturn as you misstated in an earlier post see the baltics, eastern europe, greece, ireland, iceland and italy. its 1930 all over again.